Northeast Indiana Delegation Takes over Chicago for Major Markets Trip
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 27, 2016
Northeast Indiana Delegation Takes over Chicago for Major Markets Trip
FORT WAYNE, Ind. – A delegation of 11 Northeast Indiana business leaders and economic development professionals, led by the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, recently traveled to Chicago to conduct the region’s first “Major Markets Trip”. Their goal was to connect with corporate decision-makers and aggressively expand Northeast Indiana’s presence in this strategic Midwestern market.
The Major Markets Trip Strategy is a new strategy being implemented by the Regional Partnership to accelerate the number of business leads for the region. The strategy’s key components include: focuses on cities with a concentration of one or more of Northeast Indiana’s target industries; involves multiple regional stakeholders to represent the region; and adds a talent attraction function to our business development outreach.
During the trip, the team focused on three different events, including:
- NeoCon, a design exposition and conference for commercial interiors with nearly 50,000 design professionals,
- OMTEC, an orthopaedic manufacturing and technology exposition and conference with nearly 400 attendees from 80 device companies, and
- The Midwest Data Center Summit, a conference welcoming nearly 400 data center corporate executives.
In addition to the Chicago trade shows, the delegation also met with business leaders outside of the event. Sixteen meetings with business decision makers, site selectors and international government officials took place over four days.
The delegation included:
- John Sampson, Alan Tio, Alex Knollenberg, Hannah Stork and Ashley Spranger of the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership,
- John Urbahns, Scott Naltner and Dave Sholl of Greater Fort Wayne Inc.,
- Ryne Krock of the LaGrange County Economic Development Corp.,
- Keith Gillenwater of the Economic Development Group of Wabash County; and
- Brad Bishop of OrthoWorx.
As the leader of business attraction efforts for the region, the Regional Partnership is working with regional partners to support a goal of developing 500 new business contacts in 2016.
“Our mission is to build, market and sell Northeast Indiana to increase business investment, and this Major Markets trip to Chicago directly advances that mission. We are working hard to tap into strategically chosen major markets and increase awareness of Northeast Indiana assets with corporate decision-makers in order to develop high quality business projects for our region. ” said Alan Tio, senior vice president of the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership.
To learn more about the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, visit our website at www.neindiana.com/about-us.
About the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership
The Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership was formed in 2006 to help build a globally competitive economy in Northeast Indiana. It is a public-private partnership focused on generating business leads and building regional capacity through product development and effective regional collaboration. In 2010, the Partnership launched Vision 2020 to bring the region together around five key areas for economic growth: 21st Century Talent, Competitive Business Climate, Entrepreneurship, Infrastructure and Quality of Life. Through its combined efforts in business development and capacity building, the Partnership supports its 11 member counties: Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley counties. For more information, visit www.neindiana.com.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
John Sampson
President and CEO
Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership
260.469.3471
john@NEIndiana.com